03 Sep Neurons In Brain Most Affected by Alcohol Identified
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Jun Wang MD PhD, Assistant Professor
Department of Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics
Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience
Texas A&M College of Medicine
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Wang: Alcohol use disorder is a very common disease, but the mechanism is not clear and the treatment is limited.
Medical Research: What are the main findings?
Dr. Wang: We have three findings in an animal model of alcoholism:
- Alcohol drinking changes brain cells (also called neurons), making them more excitable.
- The change occurs only in a group of neuron called D1-neurons.
- Suppressing D1-neurons in a sub-region of the brain reduces excessive alcohol intake.
Medical Research: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Dr. Wang: Since our research was conducted in animals, whether it works in human is not known. However, research indicates that a drug inhibiting dopamine D1 receptors might help stop alcohol drinking.
Medical Research: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Dr. Wang: It would be of interest to find therapeutics to inhibit D1-neurons specifically in the dorsomedial striatum, a sub-region of the brain where the study was conducted.
Citation:
Wang, Y. Cheng, X. Wang, E. Roltsch Hellard, T. Ma, H. Gil, S. Ben Hamida, D. Ron. Alcohol Elicits Functional and Structural Plasticity Selectively in Dopamine D1 Receptor-Expressing Neurons of the Dorsomedial Striatum. Journal of Neuroscience, 2015; 35 (33): 11634 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0003-15.2015
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Dr. Jun Wang MD PhD, Assistant Professor (2015). Neurons In Brain Most Affected by Alcohol Identified
Last Updated on September 3, 2015 by Marie Benz MD FAAD